


Reaper

by Randommuse386



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Heartache, Loss, Love, Magical Realism, Memory, Second person POV, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:22:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23369941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randommuse386/pseuds/Randommuse386
Summary: Death is not the final great silence and the stars can sing sweetly if you know where to go.
Kudos: 4





	Reaper

You couldn’t afford to think of it as a myth. 

She had woven the stories so wonderfully together, bright and warm and breathing; their tangible magic could only be born of reality. Over the years, her voice started waning from your recollection, but those words, those promises, were the clearest sound, and the further you ran from that darkest of days the more they fell gently on your shoulders to turn you towards the sun. You could not ignore the adventure calling any more, so you took the map drawn out by lullabies and fantastic tales to guide that first step. 

-

It is not easy. The romantic veneer of those fairy tale stories wears off quickly with each mile tread. You walk and you stumble and you blister and bleed, chasing down paths where the world feels timeless and suspended on a shallow wind. After the third time you think you can go no further, you smell the sea and hear waves and a crystal ocean spills out beneath the cliff you are suddenly at the edge of. The earth pulls at you to stay but you know you have to choose the unknown, have to trust that she is leading you where you need to be. You pause and fill your lungs. And then you fall back and feel the water pull you down and down and down.

-

You wake trembling on a hard stone floor, drinking down air that cuts crisp in your throat. Shapes and figures slowly come into focus and the picture resolves into a library of sorts. The walls are made entirely of shelves and those shelves are entirely full. Big and thick, and bound in leather made butter-soft with age, the books seem to be humming all around you as they rise up and up and up towards a ceiling you cannot see. And each one is limned in the faintest glow, pulsing from the pages like a heartbeat - like starlight. You get up on your next breath and stand there, wondering if this is reality or if you are dead in the water, hallucinating in your final stretched thin seconds.

A shuffling drag draws your attention, and when you turn you see the night sky in vaguely human form. They are tall and thin, limbs expanding and contracting like they are fighting not to fling wide and consume. Colors shift and ripple across the spectrum of what could be called black, from the blue tinted darkness that surrounds a full moon to the true blankness you only see when your eyes are closed tight. A maw of glittering and pointed teeth opens around the loosest and most threatening definition of a smile, but the most unsettling part of the creature were the eyes. Bright and gaseous and never quite where you expected them to be, they fill your vision and seal your feet to the floor.

“Well well well,” they sing out. It is a clamoring of voices, a patchwork choir that throws random minor notes into a song you thought you knew. There are goosebumps racing down your back and centering in the dip of your spine. “Another traveler, another soul hungry for forbidden knowledge. Why have you come to me?”

Your answer is pulled effortlessly from your lips. “I came for the stars.”

A huff, impatient and hostile. “Yes yes, this is the Observatory, where you can speak to the stars. For a price. What greed brings you here?”

Before you can reply, they barrel on, listing options like choices from a menu. “Do you want to build an empire upon the thoughts of men long dead? We have the greatest thinkers and the most ruthless architects of manipulation, a bevy of ideals to twist. It only costs your empathy and compassion.”

A bewildered stare.

“No? How about secrets from old gods? They can whisper to you of power and devotion easily bought, how to take everything and give nothing in return.”

Curious now, “And what does that cost?”

“Your ability to create good in the world.”

You did not know the prices would be so steep and it shows upon your face. They can sense your hesitance like blood in water.

“Too much? Fine. A conversation with a king well remembered? He can teach you how to cheat death, for awhile at least. It only costs a life that is not yours to sacrifice. Or maybe - “

“No,” comes strangled out from your throat. You clear it nervously. “Nothing like any of that, I only want....”

You cannot finish.

You reach into the inside pocket of your coat and draw out fragile paper - corners worn from hands grasping too tight and the ink fading, once-dark hair tumbling over a half-turned face that used to be so much rosier. So very alive. It is a candid shot with her caught somewhere between disbelief and laughter, hand playfully trying to swat at whoever was holding the camera; it’s a little blurry and you can’t really see her eyes, but her smile is there and it’s the only happy one you have left.

You reach across the aisle and feel like you’re reaching across a cracked and gasping desert.

You say, “I can never hold her in my arms again; I can’t hold her face in my mind as easily as I once could; and I’m afraid one day my heart will no longer hold hers.”

You say, “I know it isn’t much, but it’s all I have.”

You say, “Please, let this be enough.”

Please.

They look at you with such softness now, their form shivering as sharp angles curve. A sigh, almost wistful, peeks out from teeth still uncomfortably white, but they are cradled in a mouth no longer tensed. Their clawed hands come out to meet you and they look more like they were meant for care and not cruelty. You close your eyes before you can see them take your offering, before they so easily pluck a piece of yourself right from your own hands.

But long seconds pass and your hands are still full, still overflowing.

A cold heat slides along your knuckles, a caress of icy winter followed by the swelter of summer that straightens your neck and startles your eyes back open. It’s gone so quickly you’re not even sure it was there.

Their voice is a low murmur now. “I see you have already paid your price. More than. We will get what you are owed.”

You blink and they are no longer in front of you; they are hovering along the shelves in the back left corner, brushing against books on the eighth shelf up. Another blink and they are back, one of the books in their impression of hands. It opens with barely a touch, and you can see a living map of a galaxy of stars, shining bright enough to burn but you only feel quiet comfort.

“Here is where her soul resides, where the sky has welcomed her home. Every time you look up, you will know exactly where to find her. And you can hold her again, now, for a time.”

With that, a star rises from the page. You cup your shaking hands around it and bring it close, feathering a kiss to its buzzing cheek. 

_Hello again, love._


End file.
